News Release Number: STScI-1994-52

December 6, 1994: Astronomers using the Hubble telescope as a "time machine" have obtained the clearest views yet of distant galaxies that existed when the universe was a fraction of its current age.

A series of remarkable pictures, spanning the life history of the cosmos, are providing the first clues to the life history of galaxies. The Hubble results suggest that elliptical galaxies developed remarkably quickly into their present shapes. However, spiral galaxies that existed in large clusters evolved over a much longer period — the majority being built and then torn apart by dynamic processes in a restless universe. These pictures of faraway galaxies, located 5 to 10 billion light-years from Earth, illustrate the findings.